The Romantic Imagination and Astronomy: On All Sides Infinity [Hardcover]

In the nineteenth century the beauty of the night sky is the source of both imaginative wonder in poetry and political and commercial power through navigation. The Romantic Imagination and Astronomy examines the impact of astronomical discovery and imperial exploration on poets including Barbauld, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Rossetti.Acknowledgements Introduction 1. The First International Event and the First 'New' Planet: Expanding the Globe and Confronting Infinity 2. Barbauld: 'Embryo Systems and Unkindled Suns' 3. Coleridge: Herschel, and Cosmogonical Time 4. John Herschel and Mary Somerville: Astronomical Legacy and the Proprietary British Scientist 5. Astronomy and Empire: The Pathos of Demystification in Lamia and The Witch of Atlas 6. Rossetti: Reconciliation and Recursivity Conclusion Bibliography IndexInformative and engaging, written throughout in a lucid style, and persuasive in its recovery of the contours of astronomical debate in the period, this book undoubtedly adds to our understanding of the place of astronomy in the cultural history of the romantic period and of the processes by which the modern scientific disciplines began to develop out of eighteenth-century natural philosophy. (Cian Duffy, Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 48 (1), February, 2017)

Dometa Brothers is an Assistant Professor of British Literature at Iowa State University. She has published articles and book chapters on Romantic poetry and the history of science and mathematics, ecosemiotics, and travel writing.